Guns and milk: what ISIS women carried from fallen caliphate

Guns, laptops, gold coins and baby formula: when Syrian fighters search women emerging from the ruins of the jihadist “caliphate”, what they find is not the contents of your average handbag.

Women arrive in droves at a screening point controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the Islamic State group’s last redoubt in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.

Veiled from head to toe, they conceal weapons under their clothes or in their bags, tucked between their children’s scant belongings, says Nawal Kobani, an 18-year-old SDF fighter.

“The men don’t carry anything, these things we only find with the women,” the blonde, green-eyed fighter tells AFP at the SDF outpost.